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As fun as it is to believe conspiracy crap, a few things are obviously more pertinent.

Each party thinks it is representing its followers' wishes. Each party wants the other to blink. No representative knows, or remembers, what it is like for everyone else on the planet, whose jobs are not secure as long as they stay scandal free.

Everyone who wanted this has no idea what it means to the economy, or their portfolios, or to jobs, because the goal was looking tough for the voter. They don't want to inflict pain

for what it's worth, a large part of what our defense industry does is pry money out of the hands of the super wealthy and spread it around the economy.

The decision to pry money from the super wealthy, and the decision of what to spend that money on are two disjoint decisions. For instance, we could still tax the rich, and then instead of spending a billion dollars on a single B-2 bomber, we could spend $11,000 each to improve every single one of the 88,000 elementary schools in America. Which of those two expenditures would be more likely to improve the long term strength and security of our country?

Your assuming the 11k actually makes it down to each elementary school. And then your assuming that because it does, it will have some sort of long term beneficial effect. Your wrong on both counts. The US spends more on education per pupil then just about any other country in the world and we have shit results from it. Until the educational/unionization/bureaucratic complex is dealt with, more money wont make any difference in our schools.

It looks like those sites in that list are now all running on the same server (given they are serving an identical page, and nslookup returns the same IP address for all of them). Most likely they have one server running to keep that page displayed whilst turning off the rest of the servers that would be needed for normal operation (considerably more than one).
Also they are probably worried about the sites getting hacked or breaking whilst they're not paying anyone to fix them...

First, it was a joke.
And second, your wired scenario is misleading, at best (Or simply a lie, depending on how you want it spun). Many government activities that sustain themselves rather than rely on appropriations (such as military base commissaries) have been closed simply to artificially increase the negative impact of the shutdown.

Generally most of the people intent on shrinking the US budget as much as possible do not want to shrink defense spending. They consider an overwhelming defense/offense force with pie-in-the-sky projects to be vital, but health care and social programs are unnecessary (or should be handled by the states/counties, at which point they'll gripe that the states/counties spend too much).

That's a bit of an oversimplification. There are three major camps now in the red team: the neoconservatives who favor imperialism and value military spending for the sake of American power, the vested-interest establishment that wants to feed its defense contractors for little reason except to reap kickbacks and support local porkbarrel spending, and the libertarian wing (with some of the Tea Party) that earnestly and without cynicism believes in reducing military expenditure for constitutional reasons and a sense of historical obligation to the ideals of the Founding Fathers. The blue team finds it hardest to work with the lattermost faction, which uncompromisingly also wants to cut social spending; the establishment cores of each team, blue and red, work together to increase spending on arms and useless foreign conflicts. The leftmost blue team factions (i.e. Kucinich) might like to reduce military expenditures, but no one listens to them. There's really no mainstream political will on either side of the aisle to reduce the military to sane levels, because that will cost campaign dollars and district jobs. Everyone has to Support Our Troops to get reelected, after all. Eisenhower was right: the Military-Industrial Complex has changed the way we think about the economic and political status of the Union.

the libertarian wing (with some of the Tea Party) that earnestly and without cynicism believes in reducing military expenditure for constitutional reasons and a sense of historical obligation to the ideals of the Founding Fathers.

That and the fact that it costs a lot of money. Not that that's a bad reason (I believe it's the best reason), but it's an important one you left out.

The blue team finds it hardest to work with the lattermost faction, which uncompromisingly also wants to cut social spending

If the libertarian wing is that uncompromising, then they're either politically naive or just poseurs. It's better to get some of what you want than none of what you want. If you can make common cause with someone, even though you completely disagree with them otherwise, the do it. Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders were working together on a push to investigate the

Who listens to the libertarian faction? Nobody listens to the left wing, because there aren't that many of them. Kucinich, Sanders, uh, help me, I'm running out of names. The genuinely libertarian faction? Ron Paul, and, uh, I don't know. I know less about them so add names if appropriate.

I had the impression that a large percentage of the IT community listened to the libertarians and agreed with them, though it's not half as common here as it used to be.

You're dead-on right about the left wing, though. It's incredibly frustrating when people point to the NSA-loving pro-military centrist politicians like Feinstein, Boxer, or Pelosi as examples of liberals... Lynn Woolsey was/is a real liberal, but she wasn't into creating a media circus (so nobody outside her/our district really noticed her

The IT community tends to go to both extremes. There's a libertarian faction that's larger than in the general population. There's a liberal faction that's much larger than that, and again larger than the population. The rest seems to fall more or less in the middle. The tea party and neo-con factions tend to be smaller than normal.

The thing is that the IT libertarians are vocal, and used to be numerous on slashdot. But go into any IT department and poll and you'll see more liberals than anything else.

Generally most of the people intent on shrinking the US budget as much as possible do not want to shrink defense spending. They consider an overwhelming defense/offense force with pie-in-the-sky projects to be vital, but health care and social programs are unnecessary (or should be handled by the states/counties, at which point they'll gripe that the states/counties spend too much).

More specifically, they don't want to shrink it at all. They just want all the money spent on rich people.

Defense spending needs to be reduced, but this bullshit isn't the way to do it. If anything these shenanigans are going to end up costing the American taxpayer more.

Your (dipshit) Congress in action.

This is not going to reduce spending one bit. When the Congress gets done with 'shutdown' theater, everything that was put on hold will be restarted. The delays will cost more and some of the people who were intimately knowledgeable of the projects will move on, to be replaced by people who do not know as much of what is going on. None of these projects will stop, which is the only way that they would cost any less, they will continue and the interruption will make them cost more. And the Congress will continue appropriating while citing the interruption as a "need" for more money.

Well, America is acting as if it was bankrupt.Is it bankrupt? it walks like a duck*..

(* a duck walks it's ass swinging all over the place.

btw a system where a party holding power in any of the houses(in a multi house system) can decide to block everything in the country is fucked up. that's like 100 guys going on a strike and whole country stopping still. if they were REALLY for the average american, if the average american was really so much against obamacare they could have just done a _real_ strike.

Yes that is how it works. They can accept it or reject it. There is no cherry picking. Bringing healthcare reductions into a vital bill after votes on repealing obamacare has failed over forty times is nothing more than a hostage tactic.

You cannot be fired over a government shutdown. You can be furloughed or laid off, but not fired.

That combined with your clear lack of understanding of civics, I am not surprised you do not have a job, but rest assured your children can still get healtchare.

The Republican controlled House of Representatives passed a spending bill funding the entire federal government - except Obamacare.

Whatever you think of Obamacare, it was passed into law by a majority of both houses and the president's signature, just like the Constitution requires. Now the house R's, instead of trying to repeal the law, are instituting a tyranny of the minority. Don't do what we want, and we'll screw up everything. Much as it sucks to have the federal government largely shut down, the D's are right not to give into this extortion. Let this kind of crap get started, and we'll have a situation where an overall minority that controls one house, or the presidency, gets a chance every year to effectively veto any law they don't like.

Half the current congress does want to fund it. So does the executive branch. Sorry, you do not get to whine and throw tantrums every time you don't get everything you want.

If things were reversed and the Democrats decided... say not to send any funds to any state that votes for a Republican in the next election would that be ok with you? Or maybe decided not to pass a budget or CR unless gay marriage is made legal nationwide?

By the way, polls show that 72% of Americans say this is the wrong way to go ab

Republicans lost the overall vote in the House, but have many entrenched politicians thanks to excessive gerrymandering. They only can't do that for the senate because they can't manipulate state boundaries!

And yes, Democrats gerrymander too, but clearly Republicans have done it more, since they can drastically lose the popular vote for the house and still hold the majority of the seats.

You seem to be confused about the nature of House elections. There is no "popular vote" for House elections. Each vote is district by district. Excess votes in one district have no meaning in another. Excess votes in one state have no meaning in another. The Republicans have a majority in the House, period. They haven't lost any non-existent "popular vote."

The only way you have the power to perform redistricting in most states is to win elections. You're acknowledging that the Republicans are winning

Show us the links, man where these waivers are being reported. I'm not just taking your word for it. A respectful journal, not Red State.
It's the tyrannical of the minority because there are R's who also do not believe in shutting down the government to do this. The damn thing was ruled constitutional by the supreme court. So it's been ruled. There is no conspiracy here. The bill went through the normal channels. Republicans are trying to use something that is generally procedural to turn back the

It sounds to me like they're both holding you hostage.//ducks
In Australia we have a thing called a double disillusion, if the government can't pass spending then the whole parliament is dissolved and goes to the polls. Then if the bill still won't pass, then a joint sitting of both houses is called to pass spending. It works as a very good deterrent and has only ever had to be used once. Perhaps you Americans need to consider adding that to your constitution?

Right now, it's one party that's has lost it's marbles. They could end this at any time. The reason is that Boehner won't allow a clean vote based on partisan reasons. That's the whole issue here. Partisan reasons. It's ridiculous, especially coming from the party that talks endlessly about being the party that doesn't like the spend. They are the opposite. I've voted Republicans before, but I'm not voting Republican tell they've kicked Tea Party and ideological and religious meglomaniacs out of their party.
It mgiht be nice to have run off elections at the local layer. But we still need a press that can lay out the issues without making everything into some kind of partisan war. It gets people all hot and lathered trying to defend their team.

So basically your not voting republican until they only include members who are fine being a minority party and receiving whatever scraps Reid/Pelosi will throw to them. You basically want republicans to be the Democrat-light party on the ballot. You dont want them to actually stand for anything.

You actually sound like a Democrat who refuses to identify as a dem due to the dems moving to far to the left.

It is not the constitution that is stupid it is the 2 party system that we evolved into.

The constitution devolved into two-party systems almost immediately after it was enacted. I think the problem is systemic. A proportional system of democracy would probably be more effective at getting more voices into the government, and a unicameral parliamentary system would also eliminate all the gridlock when voters vote opposing parties into different branches of office.

The bicameral legislature made more sense when states actually appointed senators. Then the two houses actually served different p

Lockheed gets to lay off a bunch of employees while blaming the government even though the government shutdown doesn't actually affect them. That's brilliant PR. Now the employees will be angry at the government for shutting down instead of Lockheed executives laying off thousands of people in order to pad their own back pockets.

It's ignorant and incorrect to pretend that it doesn't effect Lockheed. Many employees are on bases and can't work. Others directly report to government employees who are furloughed and hand their product over to other government employees who are furloughed. I think the link even says this.

Wow, you're really not understanding this are you? When the Govt. shuts down so do ALL OF THEIR CONTRACTORS. Any work being done for the Govt. receives a STOP WORK notice. Nothing, not one single hour, can be billed by anyone except those deemed "essential" and you had better believe that Govt. folks get that designation far ahead of any contractor. That directly effects the direct billable folks immediately - as of Tuesday those folks no longer had any work to do nor were they allowed to work no matter the

As I understand it even work that was funded and not directly overseen was issued Stop Work letters. I am already aware of a small company that has fired multiple people and of another large one that's keeping mum who has several thousand idled workers who are taking leave - if they have it. This is a real no shit bad deal and the ignorance that some have as to it's impact is pretty shocking...

Every cloud has its silver lining. This is an opportunity, not that anyone's brave or smart enough to take it. The last time the British government had this sort of shut down was 1975. The Queen fired parliament. It never happened again. Take your chance now to send a message that doing their job of keeping the government running is more important than the partisan ideological bullshit. Fire congress. Sure, you'll just get some other batch of corrupt ass-hats, but you won't regret having the new batc

And Australians still remember it as making a farce of representative government. One guy didn't like the government, so he dismissed it. BTW, tt wasn't the queen, but the governor general, who technically is her representative, but was acting on his initiative. It also led to the movement for an Australian republic - getting rid of the queen and her governor general. Surely any American can sympathize with a cause like that.

At least not easily. Unlike a parliamentary system, there's no dissolution option. The vote happens once every 2 years for 1/3rd of the house. There is no clause to speed that up. Some individual states could execute a recall or other sort of ousting on their representatives but it depends on the state law and would require the voters to organize it.

So part of congress can get fired in 2014, and very well may, but not before then, at least not easily. The executive can't dissolve congress.

No, it happens for the whole House every 2 years. It happens for 1/3 of the Senate every 2 years (plus or minus a few, depending on deaths/retirements of sitting senators). So of 532 congressmen, all but 67 are up every cycle. The real problem is gerrymandering- many are in such safe districts that not only can the other party not beat them, but that their only risk is from people even more extreme, forcing them to act more extreme than their actual beliefs.

And I was just about to start testing my control system for my democrat-seeking missile system! Oh well, guess I'll just have to go be a male stripper now. If the money's good enough, I might just keep doing that once the government gets rolling again. I guess no one really wanted this democrat-seeking missile system anyway!

Really... when was the last time Lockheed delivered a project on time and/or on budget?This is a company with a distinguished history of pillaging the federal government. After all, why charge $10 for a pencil sharpener if you can charge $10,000. Just quote $5 and then show up late complaining that the guy who quoted the deal was fired for underbidding and you'll need another $10,000 to deliver it because of the extra costs involved in cleaning up the first guy's cock up.

The war is winding down and Lockheed isn't getting as much of the defense pie as they were expecting. The whole drone thing isn't something they were ready to exploit.

Lots of defense contractors are laying people off. So many of them reported this to the government in fact, that hte government asked them to delay the firings because it would show up in the unemployment stats.

I can only cynically assume that the contractors assumed that now would be an okay time to terminate excess labor.

ObamaCare is indeed "the law of the land," as its supporters keep saying, and the Supreme Court has upheld its Constitutionality.

Actually, the Supreme Court noted that two sections, the Individual Mandate and the Medicaid expansion that burdened states were unconstitutional. They upheld the former only. The latter was severed from the law despite the Supreme Court having no constitutional authority to do so (they've done this before, the precedent is some time ago).

(I got layed off today. There my Hope and Change right up my ass.)

Shortly for me. But I was close to end of season anyway. I'm dubious that the government shut down will fix anything, but if it does curb the harm of Obamacare, it will be

No, the supreme court found the Individual Mandate constitutional. They also found the Medicaid expansion constitutional, what they found unconstitutional was the part that penalized states who didn't implement it. That was the part stripped. Which is why some states chose not to implement it, even though the federal government was paying for it.

Funny thing about the supreme court- they may have no authority to cancel part of a law, but they also have no authority to say a law is constitutional or not. They took that authority onto themselves, as part of Marbury v Madison. If they hadn't done so, there would be no power capable of determining that and Congress would be able to pass and the president enforce any law, Constitutional or not (for a great example, see the Alien and Sedition acts of the early 1800s). The right to cancel part of a law is pretty much necessary to do that job- if a bill has a tiny portion that's illegal, it's much closer to what Congress wanted to cancel part of it than all of it. If Congress then wants to tweak or get rid of the law in response they have that power. Two flaws in the Constitution that we've patched without official amendment.

Bravo for laying this all out so clearly, and my heartfelt condolences for being laid off. I would add one thing: that Congress, like any parliament or legislature, is designed to be inefficient. A king or dictator is much faster at implementing new policies; a bicameral legislature is supposed to fight itself and the magistrates who execute the law. Putting the power of the purse into the hands of the lower, larger, rabble-aligned and both frequently and directly elected (remember, the Senate was not origi

You are correct but you're still an idiot. Now that you are unemployed and have no healthcare and potentially have pre-existing conditions, you better hope and pray for a change in attitude from the remainder of the House majority. A few days of slow business didn't get you layed off - it was going to happen anyways, this just happened to be a convenient time to do so.

So where does that leave you? COBRA for a few months if you're lucky under existing law and then you get to be a single person (or family) negotiating with a multinational insurance corporation. Have you done that before? If not I'll tell you a trick, lube up real good before you go begging, cause you're going to need it.

OTOH come Jan 1st, you'll get to join up with millions of others just like you and with your combined negotiating power you will be able to get a much much better deal, better in fact than any Corporate plan. Better because you will be paying less than what you plus the Corp would pay (yes they pay for some percentage of the policy, the individual typically pays less than 50%, depending on the size of the group).

Don't be an idiot. Realize that economies of scale are real and that group plans are better than individual plans, regardless of who manages the group enrollment policy.

So who pays for the money that the federal government is handing out? Nothing is "free" but as with most propaganda we are hearing, you refuse to discuss who is actually paying the bills for welfare (and yes, free health care counts as welfare).

I agree with you pointing out that the lay-off was just convenient, but the rest is the same lines of crap we keep hearing on TV media which are based on lies.

Deregulation is what started to screw up the insurance industry, and the proper fix should have been to re-

But the whole point of having a division of powers within the federal government is that each branch can decide independently what it wants to do or not do, regardless of what the other branches do, when exercising the powers specifically granted to that branch by the Constitution....

Except when I disagree with how they are exercising their powers, then they are shutting down the government.

The Senate passed it's own budget as well. Obviously the two were different and they were supposed to sit down and work out the differences. Boner refused to appoint anyone to the committee to do this - 18 times over something like 7 months. He forced this train wreck to occur and if he were to ALLOW a clean budget bill to hit the floor in the House it would be passed - but he refuses. I hope he's the first one kicked out the door.

The commercial with the baby crying? Yeah, that's him alright. Worse? These g

But the budget isn't the time to fight things. The way to get a law changed isn't to say "Let's stop paying for the law!" but rather to change the law. The ACA can be repealed, just as it was introduced. That is the right way. However there isn't the votes for that.

What's worse is that there IS the votes to pass the budget in a straight up and down vote but the leadership won't let it happen. That's why people are, rightly, calling "taking hostage". The unmodified budget could and should pass a vote, but they won't let it go to vote because they are mad. A minority trying to force things on a majority.

I also can 100% support the president in saying "No we won't make concessions," because it is in the same vein as "Never negotiate with terrorists." If they can get away with whatever they want just by threatening a shutdown, then that'll happen every single time.They continue to force more and more radical agendas saying "Do this or we shut things down!" No, no negotiation when you play hostage with the budget. Do it right or fuck off.

Unless you find out that the funding that they are fighting about for Obamacare was not in the original Law. It was supposed to use existing funding and a wee bit more. Then after it was passed, they decided that it needed 900 billion more dollars. This is why there is so much fuss from Republicans. It was not supposed to have any need for additional funding. In a country that 17 Trillion dollars in debt (this is if we could pay in cash, the actual debt with interest is estimated at nearly 100 Trillion

The US political system is deliberately designed to create gridlock. The philosophy is that the less government can do, the better. Obviously nothing is idiot proof. Yelling about how one side is evil and the other good, while the other side takes the same tone is just part of the plan. Eventually though someone involved is supposed to be mature enough to ensure the essential stuff happens.

Do the math. Bicameral legislature with a lower house population interest based and an upper house geographical interest based, and an approved law has to pass both. Add in executive veto and a two-party system and you have gridlock. By design. This is an architecture that needs an external threat to do anything at all. The founders were not shy about admitting this was their intent. To them effective government was a threat to liberty. They were wise.

I am sure there are some excellent rebuttals that will be coming your way... many on a technical/procedural level that I will not attempt. I will however, give you an example that shows the absurdity of this line of thinking.

When/if Democrats/Libertarians get in power of the House, you have basically stated that they are allowed to "defund" any part of the government they wish. Don't like drone strikes, just defund it. Don't like the whole damn military, just defund it. Don't like national parks, just defund it. Don't like border patrol, just defund it. Don't like the FBI/CIA/NASA/etc., just defund it. Don't like a single program within any of those agencies, just defund it.

You have basically created an end-around to the entire democratic process and made the House the most powerful group of people in the country. Screw the Senate, the Executive branch, the Judicial branch and the People... it's all up to the House to decide what is law; after all if they don't like, just defund it.

The Senate and the veto power of the President are the checks on the House's ability to defund programs. They can refuse to pass or can veto budgets that the House passes. That's exactly what's happening. That's exactly what's supposed to happen. The Constitution is not a blueprint for efficiency; it's a set of rules for political warfare designed to keep the politicians at each others' throats so that they're less able to choke the people instead. The government works as intended when the House, Senat

First, China is hardly a socialist country. They've been embracing significant capitalistic practices for over a decade now. You can tell, because of all the rich chinese factory owners.

You buy from people that poison you ALL THE TIME. People shop at WalMart, despite the evils they do. I bet all of your clothing is made in China right now. I bet the car you drove to work was probably chinese made. If it was assembled here, the PARTS surely were made in China. And every time you do so, yo

It doesn't have to be that way, it's an artifact of the way laws were passed. If a funding source had been included in the law when it was passed, then the funds could continue to come in, even without the approval of the current house.

Which, ironically, is why Obamacare will continue to be funded even though the House throws its biggest tantrum possible. Because it already has a source of funding.

You just lost your job thanks to a bunch of tea party freaks and you still support them! How much of a fucking retard can you be? You support the tea party but work for the government in a non-essential capacity! You fucking idiot! Tell me who is in favor of "reduced government"? Looks like you just got reduced, bitch. Have fun being unemployed you fucking loser.

Even when it comes to something as basic, and apparently as simple and straightforward, as the question of who shut down the federal government, there are diametrically opposite answers, depending on whether you talk to Democrats or to Republicans.

It's funny you put that at the top because you just fucking demonstrated it. Everyone's at fault, but there is one group holding government hostage to defund something that's not even part of the spending bill. ACA is already funded, and the house is trying to und

But the whole point of having a division of powers within the federal government is that each branch can decide independently what it wants to do or not do, regardless of what the other branches do, when exercising the powers specifically granted to that branch by the Constitution.

That's not even close to the point of division of powers. The point is to keep a check on one branch's overall power. The president can't execute a law that was found unconstitutional by the supreme court even though he's the "executor", and really he shouldn't be able to just "ignore" implementations of a law either. Likewise, the legislature, after passing a law, can't (or shouldn't) be able to sabotage a law surreptitiously. The right thing to do would be to pass a new law repealing obamacare (oh how the

It's a shame you posted anonymously, because this is one of the clearest posts on the article. You are absolutely correct that the republican controlled house is operating fully within the extent of the law. Nonetheless, the republicans are still using ethically and morally questionable tactics to get what they want. They are no better than the Democrats who are unwilling to play ball.

Ah yes, the both sides do it argument. How quaint. There is only one party here that is using questionable tactics. The democrats are correct to refuse to play this game. Do you really want to set a precedent where whoever is in charge of the house can defund anything they want by holding the economy and government hostage? They holding the value of the dollar hostage. It might be that outsiders might decide they want a more stable currency than the U.S. dollar. Then we will be up shit creek.
Obama has been bending backwards trying to appease these clowns. They only are trying it again because they thought it worked last time. Now they are backed in a corner because they thought the democrats would cave.

How could this be since the money is still being held up, as the house has refused to fund it?

Well the answer is that the stuff in the budget that the House approves isn't all the money that the government is authorized to spend. Some things are funded in multiyear chunks for example and can therefore continue to utilize the money allocated to them while the House/Senate/Pres discuss this year's budget

As for the House of Representatives' right to grant or withhold money, that is not a matter of opinion either. You can check the Constitution of the United States. All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives

It says no such thing. You're confusing it with raising revenue. From Article I, Section 7:

All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

But it is a matter of fact that members of the House of Representatives have a right to make spending decisions based on their opinion.

As does the senate, and least in a negative sense, the president via his veto power. What's your point?

You cannot blame other people for not giving you everything you want.

So the House cannot blame other people for passing Obamacare. I agree.

we do know who had the option to keep the government running and chose not to

No, we know that two factions are controlling the situation. All the House has to do is pass a budget that funds Obamacare.

unless the Republicans get their side of the story out

Cry me a river. Those poor Republicans and their victim complex - they're so misunderstood! What's the most popular news chan

As for the House of Representatives' right to grant or withhold money, that is not a matter of opinion either. You can check the Constitution of the United States. All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives, which means that Congressmen there have a right to decide whether or not they want to spend money on a particular government activity.

A bill won't get to a House vote if Speaker Boehner doesn't allow it. Despite majority support for such a measure, Boehner unilaterally refuses to put a clean CR to an up-or-down vote.

Whether ObamaCare is good, bad or indifferent is a matter of opinion. But it is a matter of fact that members of the House of Representatives have a right to make spending decisions based on their opinion.

Where does "right of the House" end and "prerogative of the Speaker" begin?

"Since we cannot read minds, we cannot say who -- if anybody -- 'wants to shut down the government.' But we do know who had the option to keep the government running and chose not to. The money voted by the House of Representatives covered everything that the government does, except for ObamaCare."

No need to read minds, just read a newspaper like the conservative Washington Examiner from July when they were pushing for it as a GOP tactic, headline:

"Republicans are willing to shut down government to stop fraudulent Obamacare subsidies".

Acting like there's some question of who's to blame is ridiculous. In addition, we know that there are votes in the House to pass a full-funding bill right now but the GOP leadership won't allow the vote to occur. (See "discharge petition" in the House below):

As for the House of Representatives' right to grant or withhold money, that is not a matter of opinion either. You can check the Constitution of the United States. All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives, which means that Congressmen there have a right to decide whether or not they want to spend money on a particular government activity.

Except that Obamacare is already fully funded and isn't subject to yearly budgetary allocations, since there is no money that is given to it on a yearly basis by the government. This is why you see that the exchanges opened up to people on October 1st, even though the rest of the government shutdown, because it is already fully funded separately, and thus not subject to the whims of the House, excepting for the complete overturning/modification of it via a new law that needs to get past the House, the Senat

Perhaps the biggest of the big lies is that the government will not be able to pay what it owes on the national debt, creating a danger of default. Tax money keeps coming into the Treasury during the shutdown, and it vastly exceeds the interest that has to be paid on the national debt.

I'm not a bankruptcy lawyer, so I don't know whether creditors would consider a country to be in default if it paid interest on its loans, but reneged on promises to its citizens for things like Medicare and Social Security.

What I do know, is that if the American government kept paying Chairman Mao his usury, while cutting off Grandma's health care, then that government would be finished. Putting rich commies ahead of poor seniors is about the surest form of political suicide I can imagine.

Oakridge National Laboratory is also laying off some of their employees as well. By laying off I don't mean temporarily kicking them to the curb until the shutdown is done and over with but actually telling them to find another job. I've heard that NASA is doing the same thing but I can't confirm that one.

the conspiracy nuts are going to go nuts over that the shutdown is looking more and more like a bankruptcy than just squibbling over some political issues.

Private entities rarely, if at all, focus a majority of their efforts into pure research, unlike the national labs. Funding pure research, which is one of the few actions that the US Government at least does halfway correctly, is ultimately essential if we are to progress the state of the art and thus create new fields and products that are ripe for commercialization.